Research On Gender Differences In Interpersonal Sensitivity

Interpersonal sensitivity refers to the ability to estimate and recollect the others’ behavior and performance. It is universally accepted that the female has higher interpersonal sensitivity in interpersonal communication. However is the concept just one of stereotype or real exist? If it is real, then is the situation caused by experiment condition or stable gender differences? The foreign researchers have done a lot of work on the field. This paper introduces interpersonal sensitivity and the related researches of sex differences concerning empathy and nonverbal decoding and also provides a list of existing four viewpoints of the sex differences in interpersonal sensitivity and an explanation of SAM for the internal mechanism.In recent years the suspicion to sex differences of interpersonal sensitivity is mostly focused on the view that experimental tasks are connected with gender role of female. The motivation of female participants will be strengthened when they are aware of the relationship between the experimental tasks and the gender role, leading to a higher score. On the contrary the male participants will get a lower score influenced by stereotype. Along with the query, the researchers started to explore the mechanism under the female interpersonal sensitivity superiority. Through two behavioral experiments this study discusses the effects of motivation and stereotype threat on gender difference on interpersonal sensitivity and also the internal mechanism of female interpersonal sensitivity superiority. Study 1 designed the experimental tasks and controlled the experimental conditions respectively applicable to male and female participants, which wanted to see whether the gender difference of interpersonal sensitivity real existed. Study 2 designed the new assignment based on SAM, including the evaluation of personal homepage and video chat, which wanted to see the gender difference of interpersonal sensitivity in network and the internal mechanism of female superiority in the interpersonal sensitivity.In Study 1,the female participants have obviously higher scores on recollecting the character’s appearance and status clues. Similarly the female participant’s description is markedly more accurate on estimating the cooperator’s behavior and recollecting the appearance clues. In addition, the scores of female and male will be both improved when the experimental tasks and competitive atmosphere are informed in advance, having no effects on the results of gender differences. In Study 2, there’is significant interaction effect between gender and normative accuracy.The results show that:(1) Controlling the motivation and stereotype threat female interpersonal sensitivity is still obviously higher than male.(2) The experimental task and the way of improving motivation which is applicable to male can improve the male interpersonal sensitivity.(3) The gender differences of interpersonal sensitivity also exist in personal homepage estimation and networked communication.(4) It is the normative accuracy that the main reason of female interpersonal sensitivity superiority in interpersonal communication is rather than the distinctive accuracy.